Ask Away
by mickeiblue
Summary: *Breyton/Leyton/Brucas* oneshot. 'Everything I have, you gave me in someway. This is what I give you back. And like always, you never say no.' A unspoken question answered, a friendship changed and the one thing that will either make or break them.


**Disclaimer: i dont like own anything**

**AN: **okay so good news is my thingy is working again so i can now UD on my home computer, so expect a chapter of Love and Infatuation very soon, i am working on it. but ideas are racing through my head, one of the reasons my stories seem to get dropped and picked up so much, i usually finish them in my head before i finish writing them down and then get caught up in another idea. and this one sort of popped into my head, but i have to focus on my other stories and didnt want to start a new one but the idea wouldnt leave me so i decided to squash it all down into a reflective one shot from P Sawyers point of view. So um, i cant promise this is very good or to the standard of my others fanfics, but i needed to write this idea down and it just wrote itself this morning. so here it is. tell me if you think it was worth it. thanks.

_"Good friends can ask anything of each other. Great friends never have to, questions are answered unspoken"_

**Ask Away**

I didn't say it, but I knew that it was what I was asking, and she knew it too.

I thought I was okay with it, but I wasn't, I wasn't okay with watching my best friend and my ex boyfriend fall in love. And to make matters worse Lucas wasn't okay with it either, I didn't want to question why. Is it because it adds another link to Julian my ex, is it because Brooke's his ex, is it a friend worrying about a friend. I don't know.

I didn't say let him go, I didn't say the words but I asked it without needing to, and she knew exactly what I was asking.

She did it and I thought everything would go back to normal.

But it didn't.

It got that much crazier.

"_No, Peyton, you knew exactly what you were asking and what I would do, you _knew_. We're not in high school anymore and my heart cannot take this anymore... I have given you everything I possibly can, and you just take and take and take and it is killing me... That's my heart, Peyton, that's my heart I'm giving up"_

It had hit home.

"_Are you happy? You get everything you want, everything I want, are you happy that I'm left with nothing?"_

There was no reply I could give to that one. No right answer.

"_I didn't love him? I didn't get a chance to! You took that away. He might not have been _that _guy, Peyton, but he could have been _the _guy, but I'll never know"_

And it was too late to say sorry.

"… _That was the last thing I _ever _do for you"_

Everything Brooke said, everything she screamed, that stands out the most.

"… _That was the last thing I _ever _do for you"_

But it wasn't.

Call it guilt; there was some of that, shame as well. And the need to make things right, the need to see her happy, the simple need I have for Brooke to be part of my life.

I would have done anything to get her back.

Sacrificed anything at that point to get her back, I didn't think about it, I just did it.

Because she was right, I kept taking and I had everything we both ever wanted, where as she kept having the dream slip away.

And so I got caught up in the need to give back to Brooke, so caught up in it I didn't see that I was dragging all of us deeper into the danger.

"_I want to help Brooke; I want to do something for her"_

"_Like what?"_

"_Something she can't do by herself. I want her to be happy, Luke, I want her to get her dream"_

"_Peyton?"_

"_I want to give her a baby"_

This is what I wanted and I fought for it.

Lucas was unsure, Brooke wasn't interested but I knew that she wanted this, somewhere deep inside her she wanted to accept what I was offering.

But in the end she said yes because I asked her to, she did it for me.

But I did it for her.

"_It doesn't need to be complicated Brooke. It's as complicated as we make it. You have Sam, and I know you love her, but a baby, Brooke, you have no idea what it feels like to know there is a life growing inside you. It's amazing, and you shouldn't miss out on that. And this way you know exactly what you're getting, the baby may not have a father, but it'll still have Lucas, and we'll be there for you, we'll be your family"_

We had control, it's only as complicated as we make it.

"_What's the difference between this and a faceless, nameless donor? The only difference is this baby will be made from love, our love for you… let me do this for you"_

Or maybe I did it for myself.

I was so happy. With Lucas and our baby, I just wanted Brooke to get a little happiness too, I wanted to give her some instead of taking it away.

At first she didn't seem happy, a little scared. But I knew that it would all go away the moment she held _her _baby in her arms.

And just like that it all happened. I held Brooke's hand as they artificially inseminated her, and I was there as she fell pregnant to a baby that would genetically be as close to my fiancé as the child resting within my own womb.

It was Brooke's baby, o_ur_ family but we all knew that the baby inside her was just hers, it had no father.

Lucas and I had our own baby, and for a while we were all happy.

My body swelled, became round with our daughter.

Anna Elizabeth Scott.

I had visions of the future, my fair blue eyed daughter being best friends with Brooke's dimpled equally dark little girl.

But the dream began to smash,

I thought it would bring us closer, it was meant to.

In the end I gave Brooke the one thing that drove us apart.

"_Alex or Alec?"_

"_What, Brooke slow down, I don't understand you"_

"_I was thinking Alexander Keith Davis, but I can't choose between Alec or Alex"_

"_You're having a boy?"_

Brooke was having a son.

"_Alec, I like Alec"_

"_Thanks, Luke, so do I"_

Brooke was having Lucas' son.

That's when the cracks began to appear, and suddenly my plan didn't seem so clear cut.

But it's as complicated as we make it.

We had control.

Until I lost it.

The control and my daughter.

"_We can have more babies Peyton, lots of beautiful babies, with curly hair the same shade as their mothers"_

"_And their daddy's eyes"_

"_Yeah"_

"_But I wanted this baby, Lucas, I want our baby girl back"_

"_So do I, so do I"_

I felt empty.

And there Brooke was growing bigger and bigger, her son safe within her, she grew bigger than I ever got a chance to. And I watched as it happened, I watched empty as she grew fuller, and I had to watch Lucas' eyes light up every time he saw Brooke and her belly, I saw the way he tried to hide the bliss when he felt their baby kick.

It all changed.

In my mind Brooke's baby became their baby, their son, every look, touch and word had another meaning. I was caught up in thoughts I didn't want to think, no matter how crazy they were I believed them.

"_What am I meant to do? You wanted this, Peyton, not me. I did this for you. It's not my fault our baby died and it's not my fault Brooke's didn't. I'm trying to do the best I can, but everything I do seems to be the wrong thing"_

It was fight after fight, and as the months went by I pushed them further away.

And as I pushed them further away from me they grew closer to each other, the closer they became, the further I pushed. Until we were all in so deep we were lost.

"_I love her Brooke, but I feel like I'm holding onto us for her not for me, and I keep trying to get her to believe the words I say but somewhere along the way I stopped believing in them myself"_

"_It will get better, Luke, she loves you, you love her, and that's all that matters"_

"_I'll always love her…but I don't know if we're _in_ love anymore"_

It hurt to overhear those words.

But after that I couldn't help but question it myself.

"_I can't do this anymore"_

"_Peyton?"_

"_We're destroying each other, Luke, and I'm not sure I like who or what we are anymore. I can't breathe. I can't think straight"_

"_I love you"_

"_I know you do…"_

"_I can't loose you too"_

And for a while it got a little better, for a while I pushed it all to the back of my mind and forced myself to stay.

But it just started all over again.

The thoughts, the fights and the accusation.

And all that pain.

I started to wonder all the time if he was thinking about her and not me, if he was with me but wanted to be with her.

Every time he was silent or thoughtful the doubts crept in.

And when Brooke gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Alexander Keith Davis, seven pounds of bouncing baby boy, my doubts doubled.

Alec was Brooke's pride and joy, Nathan and Haley adored him, Jamie loved him, Sam spoilt him, and Lucas and I were on the sidelines.

I wanted to be there, and I never believed he did.

"_Why won't you tell me where you were?"_

"_Because you will read too much into it"_

"_You were with them, weren't you?"_

"_Peyton-"_

"_JUST TELL ME!"_

"_Alec's sick, I was just dropping off some medicine"_

"_Why do you even bother coming home?"_

"_I come home to you. I always come home to you. I've seen Brooke and Alec four times since he was born, _four _times in three months; I am _always _home"_

But I never felt like he wanted to be here, I felt like he always was thinking of them.

It ate away at me, at us.

"_Why won't you trust me when I say my heart is with _you_?"_

But I kept hearing his other words that he spoke to her.

"_I love her Brooke, but I feel like I'm holding onto us for her not for me, and I keep trying to get her to believe the words I say but somewhere along the way I stopped believing in them myself… I'll always love her…but I don't know if we're _in_ love anymore"_

The fighting stopped.

But so did the talking and the touching.

It came to the point where we were two strangers living and moving together, but we both stayed, habit I suppose.

Love, I suppose.

You know it's bad when you have to suppose its love.

Neither one of us were ever really willing to let go, and when I was alone in taht dark house I alaways wondered what exactly we're holding onto.

It can't possibly be what we are.

I came up with two choices, we were holding onto either what we use to be or what we dreamed we could be.

And I figure both are lost now.

For so long I thought it was as complicated as we made it, and I did make it complicated, which made it that much worse.

But it's really as complicated as it _just is._

Complicated is teh relationships between us.

Complicated is the loss of a child.

Complicated is not being a father when you are.

Complicated is being a father when you're not.

Complicated is the dream of our children.

Curly hair the same shade as their mother's, eyes like their daddy's.

Just like Alec.

They got the dream.

It is Christmas, the second since Alec's birth, and I sit on the chair watching the Scott family. My family or what is meant to be my family.

Nathan and Haley are by the tree with their children, smiling and laughing. Lucas is on the other side.

I watch as Lucas instinctively picks Alec up so he can reach up to put his blue star on the tree and Brooke comes to help, her head falling back in laughter as her son does the same. I watch as Brooke and Luke's eyes connect.

The doubts are no longer there, it's just all so empty, all so complicated, all so buried and entangled that the doubts have become so much more than what they use to be, but at the same time they are such a big part of everything that I no longer feel enough to to care.

Lucas is smiling; I try to remember the last time I made him smile.

Or the last time he made me smile.

And my mind is goes blank.

None of us say it, and I don't think any of them even think it.

Brooke doesn't need to ask me to let go and she never will, she won't think to ask me or not ask me, and even if she w_ants_ me to let go she'll never admit it to anyone, not even herself.

But a long time ago I started to think about what I was holding onto and now I'm finally just going to let go for all our sakes.

Somewhere along the way I lost it all, and Brooke picked it up.

Are you happy? You get everything you want, everything I want, are you happy that I'm left with nothing?

I don't think you are.

But we all lost control a long time ago and now its too late. You just have it, so Take it, Brooke, maybe this will be the last thing you can ever do for me, after all it's the only thing I've ever given you.


End file.
